The main thing was we got there but not being in ‘full control’ of our journey was just an experience we didn’t relish! I should add that flying ‘non-rev’ is not free, you still pay the non-rev cost which varies on AA between Y, J & F. The sponsoring employee gets debited via payslip when travel is complete.
Half way through our stay our friend in AA rang to say the passenger loads the following Saturday were looking decidedly ‘cosy’, especially on the internal sector options, namely PSP-ORD or PSP-DFW. He explained that our best bet would be to get ourselves to LAX for a midday flight and then hope that we get on to a flight to JFK and then fly JFK-LHR that night. At that point I took action and started researching options to pay in full for a flight back! Business Class was out of the question, coming in at several £k each but Air New Zealand were offering what we thought was a great rate for a single fare LAX-LHR in Premium Economy, although this would entail us flying on the Saturday instead of the originally planned Friday. Since it was $400 less to fly on the Saturday as opposed to the Friday (and incidentally $380 less than VS PE on both days!) we decided to book ANZ there and then, especially as we knew ANZ offered their new Premium Economy ‘Space Seats’ on this service!
So flights were booked and e-tickets issued. As far as seat requests went there was unsurprisingly little choice but, after extensive research, plumped for 28A&B. Some reviews suggest that the centre seats are better for couples but having spent a good couple of hours reading many reviews I felt that the seats at the sides were better.
So Saturday morning arrived and we set off in the car around 10:30 for the 120 miles drive along the I10 from Palm Springs to LAX. We’ve done this drive many times and on this occasion there were no holdups whatsoever and we arrived at Hertz car rental return in less than two hours. Car dropped and on to the courtesy bus and, as we were the only people on the bus, we were deposited straight to T2 outside the Air New Zealand area which is just to the right of the VS check-in area. There were a few people camped out in line at the VS area which was not yet open given that the VS8 doesn’t depart LAX until an hour & a half after the ANZ flight.
ANZ have one check-in area for Economy and another for Business Class / Premium Economy. There was no queue at the Business/PE check-in and we were seen straight away and our home printed paper boarding passes replaced with ‘proper’ ones. Cases tagged and then returned to us, or rather to a porter who was one of several hovering at the ANZ premium check-in area, who then carted our cases over to the TSA area just over the way . The lady at TSA asked if our cases were unlocked to which we replied yes and she thanked us. We’ve never bothered with one of those special TSA locks incidentally, just don’t see the point.
Onward and upward we presented ourselves for the next screening at the foot of the escalators up to security using the premium class queue which, on examination of our boarding passes by the girl organising the queuing, we were permitted to use. There was no queue at all at the x-rays which was surprising as normally this area at LAX T2 is heaving so we hastily removed belts, watches, rings, shoes, coins before going through. No alarms sounded for us on this occasion and we were through quickly. Lots of chairs and benches now on the other side which makes it easy for ‘post security redressing’!
LAX T2 is just horrid, no other words for it. On our last few flights we’ve been fortunate enough to be flying VS UC meaning we had use of the Air New Zealand Lounge but on this occasion the delights of that lounge were out of bounds.
Thankfully, courtesy of our AMEX Platinum provided Priority Passes, we had the use of either the Air France or Air Canada lounges. Research confirmed that neither was particularly decent but out of the two the AC one was better, so we headed there. It was OK, nothing at all to write home about but at least a refuge from T2. Crudités and soup/salad were on offer along with spirits and wine & beer. We whiled away the next couple of hours here and saw our 777-300 come in from Auckland slightly ahead of schedule at 13:50.
Around 15:00 we decided to stroll downstairs and see what was occurring at the gate area, 23A. We knew we wouldn’t be boarding until at least 15:15 but fancied a change of scene. There weren’t many people milling about the ANZ gate area – perhaps around fifty, indeed there were lots more at the adjacent VS gate and then we remembered that many passengers would already be on the flight having travelled from Auckland. These pax are sent to a special holding room (which we would shortly see) where they have to fully clear US Immigration even though they are simply in transit – I guess no surprise there since, as we all know, there is no concept of a ‘transfer passenger’ in USA!
Pre-boarding began around 15:15. Now, I liked the way they did this - the staff at the gate podium were very assertive and stressed that everyone must stay seated and should not form a line during the pre-boarding process. Instead of the typical request for ‘families with young children who may need extra time to board to come forward’ they actually read out the surnames of families and invited them forward. Thus there was no free for all with every Tom, Dick or Harry deciding that their teenagers constituted toddlers! So all very civilised and done & dusted within a few minutes.
Next they simultaneously invited Business and Premium Economy passengers forward. Once through we went along quite a long corridor where, at the end on the right, was the special holding room (it looked like another gate room) for ANZ transit passengers. These passengers and us converged at the jetty entrance and we queued for 5 mins at this point to reach the aircraft door.
The crew at the door were very jovial, inspected our boarding passes and welcomed us on board by name, such a nice touch and takes nothing obviously to simply read your name from the boarding pass – ‘welcome on board Mr Watson, take a right and 28A is just along on your right – have a great flight with us’. Steve also got the same treatment as I suspect did every passenger regardless of cabin class!
Wow, first impressions of Air New Zealand’s Premium Economy cabin were positive to say the least. Not wanting to put VS down too much I have to say that the ANZ offering just blew us away from the moment we boarded to the moment we left. Hopefully the photos that follow go some way to painting a good visual of what we experienced:
Flight time incidentally was to be 9 hours 40 which would get us back to LHR a whole hour ahead of schedule. We pushed back bang on 16:00 and were airborne a few minutes later.
In summary:
Legroom – extremely good, it almost felt like as much as we had in AA business class!
Seat – very comfortable, shell style so nobody in front reclining in to you. Laptop charging socket with multi-national socket, USB charging socket and video-in for watching your own films via the seat back screen. Bean bags were also provided as foot rests, weird but surprisingly effective! Ingenious design in that the seats are angled, ie. left hand pairs and right hand pairs face towards the window. Each seat in the centre pair is angled towards the aisle. Your feet stretch into empty space within the left hand area of the seat infront’s shell.
IFE - superb. Loads of films, great flight tracker and also used as a full ‘order what you fancy’ food/drink service outside of normal meal times
Service: Overall very professional and friendly. The Flight Service Manager especially I thought went beyond the call of duty when he asked us and subsequently each and every passenger within earshot if they needed a UK landing card and, regardless of answer, then went on to ask ‘is everything OK with your flight today’.
Amenity kit – pretty good, contained Clarins lip balm and moisturiser along with socks, eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste. I’ll also add at this stage that a bottle of water and set of noise cancelling headphones was on every PE seat on boarding.
Meals – here’s the menu ‘word for word’:
Dinner
To begin:
Oak leaf lettuce, feta cheese, beets, sweet onions, black olive puree and balsamic dressing
Main Course:
Red wine braised beef short rib with potato confit, broccolini, cranberry relish and beef jus
Pan seared cod with asparagus, cherry tomoatoes and baby potatoes with saffron veloute
Poached chicken breast stuffed with roast garlic and porcini mascarpone, blue cheese polenta and creamed swiss chard
To finish:
Lemon crème fraiche mousse and seasonal fresh berries
Breakfast
Fruit, yoghurt and bakery
Fruit selection with yoghurt
Croissants with fruit conserve
From the stove:
Cheddar & chive scrambled egg with chicken and sun dried tomato sausage, herbed potato and tomato
Belgian waffles, strawberries in raspberry sauce and freshly whipped banana cream
Beverages:
A premium selection of fine New Zealand wines is available on your flight today. This selection, chosen by our panel of recognised wine consultants will be detailed by your flight attendants. A full selection of beer, spirits, soft drinks and hot beverages is available throughout the flight.
Snacks:
Help yourself from our range of snacks available for you to enjoy during your flight
We thought the meals were stunning, my short rib beef particularly was to die for! There was also a delicious smoothie served as part of breakfast, poured from a huge bottle into a glass, not pre-packed. We got quite chatty with the crew member serving our side (a friendly Scottish chap) and learned that the PE meal offering is identical to Business Class on ANZ. He added that in providing more premium meals they avoid the problem of choices running out as as overall they cater for a much larger number thus more overall stock carried more meaning that the probability of running out of a particular choice is less. As far as the scrambled egg goes, well I never knew it could be served up so well on a flight!
The meal service did not include a pre-dinner drinks run but instead what they did was serve the starter along with a drink and then clear the empty starter plates and serve the main course along with more drinks as a second service. The wine glasses were huge, those stemless ones. I commented on how nice they were and before I knew it was slipped four unused ones for taking home! As for the wines themselves, well say no more, I for one have rarely experienced a poor New Zealand wine! The Port was also excellent I hasten to add.
In chatting to him that UK based crews operate the sector between UK & USA and New Zealand based crews operate the leg between USA & New Zealand which explained why we didn’t hear a single Kiwi accent among the crew, whether flight attendants or flight deck!
Another point I feel is worth making is that the cabin temperature was kept on the cooler side of warm during the ‘lights off’ night period which I for one feel is what most people prefer. It’s so much nicer snuggling up to sleep under a blanket and feeling cosy rather than feeling all stuffy and stifling through the night.
Also the loos were fab, they had chandeliers and book shelves painted on to one wall such that you could see the reflection in the other and funky music played in the WC’s to add to the somewhat fancy atmosphere!
All in all this flight was superb, one of our best ever. We did not pay anything like a business class fare but honestly felt like we were flying business class. With the exception of not having a lie flat bed & not having access to the ANZ lounge, every other element we felt was on a par with a J product. What other PE cabins offer a seat config of 2-2-2 and offer such an amazingly comfortable seat? We also liked sharing the business class check-in at LAX and being called forward along with business class passengers when boarding.
We tend to fly via LAX a fair bit and, now with family in San Diego, are even more likely to do so. ANZ’s Premium Economy has to be a no brainer on this route when comparing against ANZ’s sole competitor, VS, on this route. I also looked ahead at future dates and it consistently comes in cheaper than VS too. No way would I pay more for a 3-3-3 PE config, less legroom and a less comfortable overall experience.
I am still a loyal VS fan, indeed I feel that the VS UC offering is probably still better than ANZ’s although I stand to be corrected as clearly haven’t sampled ANZ J class. I think it would take one hell of a lot though to beat the VS Clubhouse at LHR and the on-board bar!
This flight though in ANZ Premium Economy has seriously got us thinking about future travel and where our allegiances and indeed miles/cash spending priorities lie. Lots of food for thought but right now still a bit jet lagged to contemplate.
Thanks for reading
James
Last edited by Vegascrazy on 20 Dec 2011, 19:51, edited 1 time in total.
) to a brilliant on board experience - NZ certainly seem to have ridden themselves of the early new PE teething troubles (I believe they took one row out because legroom was actually dire), and it looks a real contender for when the pennies don't add up to UC.
-The only problem with NZ is that they're so damm good that reward flights are generally impossible to find (although I know a few people have gotten lucky from time to time) 
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